Italy closes all their schools and universities: how will you cope if we follow?

[ChristmasFlint]

I can work from home but not everyone can. It made me wonder how on earth people with sort childcare?

You do know that children don’t die from it?

Where is that christmas?

@Skyejuly Liverpool.

We'd manage easily if schools close, although I am a little worried due to DS1 doing his GCSE's in 9 weeks time!

DH can work from home and I only work minimal hours so even if I wasn't paid ( I can't work from home) we wouldn't lose too much money

There's a child in Alder Hey, think they said another one before, but not sure.
Of course a child could die from it, the same as they could any other viral infection.
Just because they haven't doesn't make it certain they won't.

Schools should start closing now, but I fear it's too late, we can't contain it now.
Looks like the worst time/peak falls right in the middle of GCSE's.

Don't forget that The majority of Italian school children are only in school till 12/13:00 most days. The majority are cared for to some extent by relatives/ grandparents so closing the schools is to help prevent infection in the elderly. It's not the same as in the Uk where relatives and grandparents would have to step in, in Italy they are already doing that so overall it's safer because culturally Italy's main set up isn't paid childcare.

I work at a University and had an email about remote teaching and learning today. They are getting ready to close- very sensible imo.

Italian schools being closed means those children who would have gone to their grandparents at 1.30 are now there all day.

I'm a teacher so will work from home. How I would deal with the dcs being home with cabin fever is another matter. In all seriousness though, I do feel very fortunate right now that there won't be any childcare issues for us.

Is it sensible to close universities in areas with a high incidence of coved? So all the students go back home to all the different parts of Italy?

This will be a good thread to come back to when posters try and pretend the rest of europe are more child friendly, italy closing schools is crippling them, highlights how it isnt as rosy as some like to profess.

"This will be a good thread to come back to when posters try and pretend the rest of europe are more child friendly"

wtf 🤯
Closing schools is neither child-friendly nor child-unfriendly

It is about protecting the whole population including children

Italy reached the stage where public health officials deemed closing schools was necessary

The UK may too in a few weeks, or may not
but the decision will hopefully also be based on expert advice

Aesop - exactly. All the university students from the big northern universities have gone home, many to the south. Obviously they arrived home and started celebrating this unexpected holiday.

Justanotherlurker- well said.

Italy has never been child friendly. But that's another thread. It may be fine and dandy for families in the autonomous regions in the north, but that's a very small area of a big country.

There's a lot more to bring child friendly than letting kids sit in restaurants till midnight and have them picked up and fawned over by indulgent waiters.

So the students from the north who might be carriers have taken it south. Great.

Thankfully I work in a University so the way things currently look we're likely to close earlier than the kids school. I can work from home as well so it would be ok. Really feel for people who aren't in the same situation so I would probably offer to help out with others kids if necessary.

I'm a TA so would be off as well so we'll be fine. But dd is in yr 11 so there is concern over her GCSEs, I made sure she's brought any outstanding coursework home this weekend so in the event of closure she can still work on it. Ds is yr 6 and I'll be sad that he's missing the last few weeks of being with his friends before they all go off to different schools. But that's not the end of the world, dd is the biggest concern

I haven't read the full thread but to all the people who think that they will be ok because they're teachers and so will be free if the schools close... in other countries affected by school closures teachers are still working. This has been super challenging for Primary but in Secondary everything has gone online using things like Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, Zoom etc. Teachers set tasks online but also have to physically be present to deliver lessons online. This is the reality in some regions/individual schools in SE Asia and the ME right now.

This would be especially difficult for teachers who have children. I've already told my classes that if we close (I'm in Thailand) they can expect some entertaining background noise in my lessons, as I have a 2 and a 5 year old who will also be stuck at home. It would actually be even harder if my kids were slightly older... older primary kids would be expected to complete work but would need some help, and I wouldn't be able to help if I was delivering my own lessons.

Anyway just a thought for all those who think they (or their teacher mates) would be able to take over childcare if schools close. It really depends on how the government manages schools closures or, in independent schools, what the expectations from the school are.

It's also true as some PPs have pointed out that the rates of infection among children and teenagers are extremely low and they are usually very mild cases. So that is reassuring.

in other countries affected by school closures teachers are still working. This has been super challenging for Primary

Can anyone elaborate on what this is actually looking like in other countries?

Staff are still working at Italian universities, they're just shut for teaching.

Can anyone elaborate on what this is actually looking like in other countries?

I did earlier on in the thread ... in Hong Kong it's shifted on line. In fairness most schools had plans for this after an earlier shut down for protests so it was up and running within days for many schools, all be its evolving over time as teachers, students and parents work out what's working and what's not.

For primary it's a range of preset work through google classroom or various online apps. Most of the kids know how to use these from school. There's sometimes prerecorded videos or a google hangout with teachers (there's various safe guarding put in place like always having an adult present at home when this happens and it being in small groups). But no denying a lot of it falls back on the parents to support - a huge bone of contention on local Facebook pages as you can imagine!

Lower primary is a pain because they have attention spans of gnats but equally if they miss a few weeks at that age it's hardly going to impact their final exams at 16/18. There's a general view, these parents should relax a bit and keep up arts/crafts, basic reading/writing/maths dependent on age. Upper primary kids are generally more self sufficient, and submit work online for marking and feedback. At my kid's school there's a lot of work going on in the background planning to provide support for when the schools reopen to ensure everyone catches up and an assumption that curriculums may need to take this into account next year.

For Secondary they follow the normal timetable, and switch google classroom/ hangout for each subject. The vast majority of secondary students are tech savvy so understand it much better than parents or teachers, in fact in the first week I'd say the the students taught the teachers how to use the tech and some continue to collaborate with students on how best to teach online. DS is forever making videos of himself presenting stuff, students build quizlets to help others, they collaborate on essays online and through FaceTime. Far too much screen time but the teens arent complaining about that.

With few exceptions parents teachers and students can't wait to get back to school.

And to answer a PP yes there's dogs and doorbells, work conference calls and other kids making noise in the background - it's not suppose to be perfect, it's a best we can do in the circumstances.

My job is in retail so that can’t be done from home. DH mostly works from home but needs to travel, sometimes overseas. DDs are due to sit A-Levels this year. They could work from home until the actual exam dates.

We have been told to expect to teach in some kind of online capacity if we are well but locked down. As we don't have staff laptops etc we think it will be to have stiff on one drive, be available to each lass at timetables times for emails and to live stream to YouTube if possible.

Most of our staff are not the best with technology so I know next week I'll be setting up some Google classrooms for them

@DarkMutterings this is exactly how it's working in Thailand, too.

We are still open (though some schools have closed due to individual circumstances) but we have a number of kids in self-isolation and at one point after half-term when the government suddenly brought in guidelines we also had quite a lot of staff in isolation, too. The staff taught from home, delivering lessons to a classroom with maybe 3/4 of the class present and the rest of the students working from home. It actually worked better than we thought!

It also gave us all a bit of a dry run for if we close. I agree it's far easier for Secondary and the students have definitely helped some teachers get up to speed.

Fingers crossed we don't close but if we have to, we're ready.

Same here (Italy)
We only closed on Thursday so everything is still a work in progress but lessons are happening online.
It's enlightening to see which teachers suddenly become unable to use even the most basic technology and to delight in copying and pasting fake news saying everyone must wear a tinfoil hat and watch Netflix.